Just how many Reichstags have to burn, anyway?

[Minstrel Boy]

Okay, so one wasn't enough for most Americans to realize their government was no longer their government. Well, alright: the truth of 9/11's some tough medicine, and many good people initially balk at the suggestion that those thought entrusted with their safety might sacrifice their lives for geopolitical gain. It's hard to accept that one's leaders could act so amorally.

But now, as everyone awaits the promised next catalyzing event, and the trial balloon of a suspended election is being greeted largely by yawns, I wonder what the hell it'll take to wake people up - Democrats, even, and perhaps especially - to the fact that this is not "politics as usual", and the "Homeland" America has metamorphosed into is not the nation to which they'd pledged allegiance.

So how many elections must be stolen, how many Reichstags have to burn, how many provisions of the Constitution and of international law must be defied, before a critical mass of Americans fold up their private comfort zone to reclaim the public square?

[NecessaryOnslaught]

1. Bush is not Hitler, so stop saying that...

[atreides1]

3. You're Right

Hitler actually served, was decorated, and was much more charismatic then Bush.

But Bush has said at least on 3 different occasions that "...things would be easier if this was a dictatorship, as long as I was the dictator.."

I don't recall Hitler ever saying he wanted to be a dictator, at least not at first.

[ibegurpard]

2. 270 million

one for each person in this country.

[tom_paine]

4. At least one more, probably several more. In a repeat of history

the Imperial Subjects of Amerika, like the Germans before them, will only wake up long after it's too late.

[Karenina]

5. C'mon TOM!!!

WOIK WIT ME HERE!!! I'm trying to ride this wave of F911, bein' all positive that it will jolt even some of the most indolent into :think: mode...

It's so hard to stay positive in this environment. If the Dummköpfen dont get us, (Meine fricken Fresse, HOW can anyone NOT recognize the *Nazis* "runnin' wild in the streets" of Amurikkka :eyes: Substitute the other N-word and you'll understand the times in which I grew up) Mother Nature will, exacting her price for the disrespectful way we continue to treat her...

: DEEP SIGH:

[seemslikeadream]

7. Meine fricken Fresse, HOW can anyone NOT recognize the *Nazis*

[Minstrel Boy]

6. "Fear Can Turn Us All Into 'Good Germans.'

We Must Resist It"

by Harley Sorensen
April 29, 2002

One of life's mysteries, for me, is how masses of people can do the incredibly cruel things they do. Individual brutality makes a certain amount of sense in that it's limited to one person. But mass brutality?

...

The formula to become a brutish leader, as Jean-Marie Le Pen proved recently in France, is a two-step process. First, you convince the masses they are in grave danger (Le Pen used immigrants as his boogie man), then you promise to save them.

That's exactly what Hitler did, and it's exactly what Bush and Sharon are doing.

Generally speaking, people who feel fear seem willing to throw away all their morals and principles. If you don't believe that, go to the airport and watch thousands of otherwise proud people line up like sheep to be publicly humiliated in the name of safety.
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0429-01.htm

[Karenina]

8. Kick!

:kick:

[tom_paine]

10. Yes, well fear can be healthy, but you can't let it paralyze you

I believe my fear of the Busheviks and their Oncoming unAmerican Tyranny motivates me and sharpens my senses.

I fear them because I KNOW them. They are not new to history but have been seen in many lands, many times.

My fear and my anger and my determination march together as one.

[TheLastMohican]

9. The cycle will soon be complete

''....At about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in the year 1787, Alexander Tyler (a Scottish history professor at The University of Edinburgh) had this to say about "The Fall of The Athenian Republic" some 2,000 years prior.

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence.


From Bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."

[tom_paine]

11. Wow, powerful post!

Who wrote that? Got a link to the larger paper?

[Karenina]

12. Will the circle remain unbroken?

Now I'm REALLY depressed.... :-(